Most of software comprise a set of tools. For example, drawing software have different virtual pencils (pens, pencils, brushes, primitive objects, paint . . . ), CAD software have some authoring tools (primitive creation, transformation, extrusion . . . ). All these tools have default parameters that the user is able to modify as color or size of a pencil, depth of an extrusion, type of primitive . . . .
Often, these customizable parameters can be accessed thanks to a separated panel containing buttons and sliders, or thanks to a contextual menu that appears at click or hold action on the screen, or thanks to a contextual menu that appears after an action on the button.
In the following the term click can be considered as a mouse click or a hold action on the screen with another pointing element, as a pen or a finger. A hold action can be a quick hold equivalent to a mouse click.
The background art have some drawbacks, as the number of clicks to launch a tool and customize the parameters, as illustrated in the following table:
Nb Parameters1510Separated Panel4 clicks9 clicks14 clicksContextual menu4 clicks9 clicks14 clickson screenContextual menu3 clicks8 clicks13 clickson button
The cases “separated panel” and “contextual menu on screen” need 1 click to launch the command, 1 click to access the parameters, 1 click by parameter and 1 click to respectively close the panel or menu. The case “contextual menu on button” needs 1 click to launch and access the parameters, 1 click by parameter and 1 click (often on the empty screen) to close the menu.
Then the space used on the screen increases with the number of parameters, thus the user needs to close the panel to access its creation space. Thus, the time necessary to launch a tool and perform all the adjustments of all the parameters.